Joseph Gordon-Levitt has revealed the progress on 'Sandman' is ''slow but steady''.

The 34-year-old actor revealed the adaptation of Neil Gaiman's comic book series has proved to be a challenge for the scriptwriters because they want to avoid obvious clichés and make the film punch-free.

He explained: ''It's really good, man. It's slow but steady.

''It's a really complicated adaptation because those comics, they're brilliant. But they're not written as a whole. It's not like 'Watchmen', which is a graphic novel that has a beginning, middle, and end. 'Sandman' was written over the course of whatever - I forget exactly, six or seven years ... and to try to take that and make it into something that's a feature film - a movie that has a beginning, middle, and end - is complicated.''

Despite the hurdles involved in the production, the 'Dark Knight Rises' star insists the end result will be ''spectacular'', even though it won't feature the huge explosions and fight scenes people have come to expect in action movies.

He told Empire magazine: ''Big spectacular action movies are generally about crime fighters fighting crime and blowing s**t up. This has nothing to do with that.''

''And it was actually one of the things that Neil Gaiman said to me, he said 'Don't have any punching.' Because he never does. If you read the comics, Morpheus doesn't punch anybody. That's not what he does. It's going to be like a grand spectacular action film, but that relies on none of those same old ordinary clichés. So, that's why it's taking a lot time to write, but it's going to be really good.''